Sirius-XM gain top-quality listeners
Written by Chris Forrester
Thursday, 14 January 2010 17:40
Pay-radio broadcaster Sirius-XM has found quite a few million more listeners - and they love the service.
The fresh data comes from audience measurement specialists Arbitron which conducted a survey amongst Sirius-XM subscribers which "found listenership is larger than previously estimated and scores much higher on key demographic criteria compared to the general population and AM/FM radio listeners."
Arbitron's study showed that more than 35 million total NSFW listeners tune in to SIRIUS XM, 32 million of which are weekly listeners. We don't yet have the official end-2009 subs numbers but the company was targeting 20m subs for the year end. This much higher number comes from the fact that while Sirius-XM might have around 20m paying subs, more than one person might be listening/using a car with pay-radio fitted, or listening at home.
The study found Sirius- XM listeners prefer satellite radio over other audio options available to them. Respondents indicated that the percent of total time spent listening to audio in general is 62% to Sirius-XM, 16% to AM/FM, 4% to streaming internet, and 10% of the time using mobile devices.
Arbitron found that in a typical day, Sirius-XM listeners spend 2 hours and 45 minutes in their vehicle, which is significant, given that while they are in their cars, they spend 71% of their time listening to SIRIUS XM compared with 17% of their time listening to AM/FM radio, and 5% of the time using mobile devices. Significantly, the Arbitron study revealed that past week Sirius-XM listeners indexed higher on key audience attributes - education, income, and receptiveness.
(c) Rapid TV News 2010